


if looks could kill, the world would burn

by friendlybomber, spaceyho



Series: the unholy trinity [3]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Accidental Zombification, Crack, Gen, Humor, I need you guys to understand there are approximately 10 serious words in this entire fic, M/M, Road Trips, Zombie Apocalypse, accidental brobeans subtext, hockey stick slap fight, trigger warning: philadelphia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-04 08:03:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14015883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/friendlybomber/pseuds/friendlybomber, https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaceyho/pseuds/spaceyho
Summary: The zombie apocalypse was like Ovi’s gray hair: not Nicky’s fault. That was all Crosby. That’s why he, Ovi, Tom, and Andre go on a cross-seaboard road trip to find him and save the world.





	if looks could kill, the world would burn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [allonsytosherwoodforest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/allonsytosherwoodforest/gifts).



> allonsytosherwoodforest left our apartment for a week so we wrote her this fic so she'd come back

According to Nicky’s sources (the Swedish mafia), Tom and Andre were holed up in an apartment-bunker in Shirlington. Maybe calling it an apartment-bunker when they only had the front door barred was a little drastic, but it had taken Nicky and Ovi a full week to find them, so maybe they had the right idea after all.

Ovi pulled into a visitor’s parking space. He turned off the ignition and looked over at Nicky.

“You sure they in there?” he asked.

Nicky unclicked his seatbelt. “Yeah.”

Shirlington was a charming, family-friendly neighborhood just ten minutes away from Kettler. Why Tom and Andre had chosen there to hide was anyone’s guess. Nicky hopped the fence and knocked on the back door to ask them.

“Papa, what are you _doing_?” Tom hissed through the glass.

“Why the hell are you hiding in Shirlington,” Nicky said, and slid the door open.

“We brought beer,” Ovi said, shouldering his way into the apartment behind Nicky.

Tom and Andre stood in the little living room, gaping. They certainly did not look ready for a zombie apocalypse. They were both in sweatpants and t-shirts, and a game of Madden still sounded from the TV in the corner. A glance around the apartment revealed several blunt weapons stacked by the front door, which was barred with an iron pipe, and none by the unlocked glass back door, because they were idiots.

Ovi collapsed onto the only furnishing in the room, a bare mattress. “Nice place you got here. I like the kitchen table.” He gestured to a single ping pong paddle lying in the middle of the floor.

“I like the TV stand,” Nicky said, looking pointedly at the unopened box for an Ikea entertainment center, which the TV sat upon.

Tom pulled the back door shut, glancing around the empty neighborhood for trouble. He drew the blinds, casting the apartment into shadows. The only light source was the TV. Why didn’t they have more furniture? They were professional hockey players. They weren’t hurting for cash.

“How did you find us?” he asked.

“Swedish mafia,” Nicky said. Andre cursed.

“Cut to the chase,” Ovi said, shifting on the mattress. “We going on road trip to bring Crosby to feds. You in?”

Tom blinked, his lips slightly parted, an Xbox controller dangling from his hand. He exchanged a look with Andre, who looked equally as confused.

“I thought Crosby died,” Tom said.

“Nah,” Ovi said. “Russian mafia says Geno hiding him. We find Geno, we find Sid. We turn Sid in, since this all Sid’s fault.”

“I mean, technically, this is all sorta Papa’s fault,” Andre said.

“Shush, you,” Ovi said.

Tom rubbed his temples. “So, lemme get this straight. You tracked us down, broke into our apartment -”

“You didn’t lock the door,” Nicky interjected.

“-and now you want us to go on a, what, pre-apocalyptic team road trip to find Sidney Crosby and save the world?” Tom continued as if there had been no interruption at all.

“I think I’ve read this one,” Ovi muttered. “Only there was a comet…”

They were silent for a moment. “I’ll go if we pick up Mike,” Tom said.

“No,” Nicky said, and slapped him upside the head. “We’re not detouring in Arizona to pick up your boyfriend.”

“Wait, so where are we going?” Andre asked.

“The one place you’d never think to look,” Ovi said.

Tom and Andre exchanged another look. Andre scrunched his face, glancing back and forth from their paused game to Nicky and Ovi. Then, he shrugged, and Tom shrugged, and they tossed their controllers onto the mattress.

“Yeah, okay,” Tom said. “It’s off-season anyway.”

 

“Holy shit, is that a Wawa?” Tom asked. “Pull over, I want a snack.”

“You got Wawa money?” Nicky asked.

"Papa, we’re professional hockey players,” Tom said.

“Your only piece of furniture was a mattress,” Nicky said.

Tom huffed and crossed his arms. “You started the apocalypse, you can pay for Wawa.”

Ovi laughed from the driver’s seat. “Ooh, Nicky, he got you.”

Nicky scowled, eyes intentionally averted from the mirror. Tom wasn’t wrong. He had, sort of, started the apocalypse. But it wasn’t really an apocalypse. That was just sensationalism. It was just… a plague. One that stretched along the entire east coast.

That he was responsible for.

He didn’t feel guilty. Not really. Just… responsible. Like this was his mess to fix.

Some messes could only be fixed with bad gas station sandwiches.

“Fine,” Nicky said. “But no ketchup in my car.”

They had been driving for about two hours, all cramped into Ovi’s designated apocalypse road trip car (with matching vanity plate and everything). From the highway, it was hard to tell the world was ending. The DMV was just as terrible to drive in as always. Little towns, the kind you only see from glimpses between trees on their exits, still went about their daily business. If Nicky hadn’t locked eyes personally with Patient 0, he almost would have been persuaded that this whole “zombie crisis” was just mass hysteria.

Wawa’s were like cockroaches in that part of Pennsylvania. They were ubiquitous, dirty, and had too many legs. Ovi pulled over up to a gas pump (two birds, one stone), and Nicky followed his two terrible sons into the convenience store.

It looked like a closet into which as many variations of Combos as physically possible had been stuffed. Tom and Andre made a beeline for the electronic order points as Nicky looked around the store. A cashier was restocking cigarettes behind the registers. Two workers were pretending to be busy behind the food counter. No other customers milled about the store.

Nicky frowned. The cashier refused to make eye contact with him, which was probably for the best. The fluorescent lighting, which had long since died to a suitably horrible dull yellow, flickered overhead, casting a sick sheen onto the cashier’s skin. It made him look like a ghost. He certainly seemed like he’d rather die than be there. Made sense: the last place anyone would want to be during the apocalypse was a fucking gas station. Poor guy.

As Nicky watched him, the cashier’s eyes flicked nervously to a door marked Employee’s Only. He continued lining up stacks of Marlboros as if nothing had happened.

Nicky glanced at the door.

The door rattled.

The hair on the back of Nicky’s arms stood on end.

He jumped as Andre shoved two receipts into his hand. Andre laughed, shouldering him playfully. “Scared, Papa?”

Nicky pursed his lips. “Ha ha.” He grabbed the top of Andre’s head and tousled it, his nerves turning affectionate rough-housing into affectionate whiplash. The door shuddered again. The cashier pretended not to notice.

Tom came bounding up. He shook a canned Starbucks drink at Nicky. “You started the apocalypse. Can I have this?”

Nicky gave the door one last look before nodding. “Yeah.” He finally looked up at Tom. “Come on, idiots.”

They piled their purchases up on the counter, and the nervous cashier rang them up silently. Nicky flipped open his wallet, and was just reaching for his card, when the door rattled again, violently enough this time for Tom and Andre to look up in alarm. The cashier fumbled with Tom’s drink. The world started to get very, very slow for Nicky as his mind raced ahead.

“What was that?” Tom asked, hand pressed to his heart.

“N-nothing,” said the cashier.

One bogey behind the door. Two civilians behind them, one in front of them. Tom could hold his own physically. Andre could not. Approximately 33.78 seconds until the bogey made contact.

Nicky gripped Andre’s shoulder, pulling him behind him.

“Your total is-”

The door shook again, its hinges creaking. Nicky shoved his wallet into his back pocket and glanced back at Andre.

“Andre, go to the car,” he muttered.

“What? Why?” Andre asked.

The door shook again. A single hinge snapped off.

"Go,” Nicky pressed. “Now.”

Wordlessly, Andre scrambled from the Wawa, leaving Nicky and Tom, both tensed and waiting, alone to face whatever was behind that door. The cashier was sweating for real now, hands pressing down on top of his head as he sucked in breath through gritted teeth. Tom cracked his knuckles.

“On the count of three,” he said.

Another blow struck the door, and it twisted on its remaining hinges. A wet, guttural growling leaked from around the edges.

“One,” Tom murmured.

The cashier ducked down low behind the counter. A sore-ridden, gray hand snaked out from behind the door, grasping onto a hinge and twisting it off with a woody groan.

“Two…”

Local Goon Tom Wilson grinned and licked his lips. Then, the door was blasted off its remaining hinge, flying into a shelf of Tastykakes, and an oozing, sinewy zombie made its appearance in the doorway. It bellowed a sound halfway between a gurgle and a roar and charged for Nicky and Tom, limbs flailing behind it as it ran.

“Three!”

Tom brought his fists up to his face and delivered a solid hit on the zombie’s head just as it reached him. The zombie grappled him, digging its decaying yellow fingernails into his arms. Nicky latched onto the zombie’s back, reversing its weight and ripping it off Tom. It went reeling into a cart of pre-made food, screaming as the hot metal seared its sensitive flesh.

“This is just like the FBI Academy,” Tom grinned, sucker-punching the zombie in the gut.

“What the fuck,” Nicky responded. “Stop enjoying this Tom. This isn’t gonna get you closer to 1000 penalty minutes.”

Tom laughed, and the zombie whirled around, sweeping him into the obligatory gas station donut case like he was a bag of jockstraps. Tom’s head snapped against the glass and he tilted forward, eyes rolling back into his head. Nicky lunged for the zombie, a fist failing to connect with it. He was off his game. Something wasn’t aligning right. The zombie growled, flailing its arms at Nicky like Sasha Semin during the NHL’s first slap fight.

Slowly, the zombie pressed him backwards. These zombies were stronger than they looked. Each blow came like a ton of bricks. Nicky missed his padding. Hell, Nicky missed his hockey stick, or even his skates. You could do some serious damage with a knife strapped to a shoe. He staggered back, the zombie pressing into him like a snowplow. It wasn’t about winning anymore. It was just about survival. Just so long as its teeth stayed away from him, he could hold it off.

His back pressed against the front window. He made a grab for the zombie’s hands, interlocking their fingers and pushing with all his might. Still, the zombie reared up on him, snarling wet and slimy as it bared all its weight down on him. Nicky puffed out his cheeks, his arms screaming in protest from exertion. They began to shake. The zombie’s jaws, inching closer to his face, snapped.

Of all the places Nicky could have potentially died, he never thought it would’ve been alone in a Wawa.

“не трахни с моим мужем!”

Ovi burst through the front doors wielding a hockey stick, looking like some sort of savage, barbaric angel. He jammed the stick between Nicky and the zombie like a crowbar, physically forcing himself between them. The zombie staggered backward, howling and clutching a new slice-wound in its chest. Nicky shook his arms out. He released a breath. Ovi reared his stick back like he was preparing to slapshot the zombie’s head straight to the five-hole.

The thing was, zombies were strong. Superhumanly strong. Like, really, really, ridiculously strong. But Ovi was Ovi.

With one swing, the zombie’s head went flying. It sailed straight into the coffee bar, knocking over several full dispensers. The head fell to the ground with a nauseous thud. Coffee dripped and pooled around it like the world’s worst B-movie blood.

Ovi speared his stick on the ground. He leaned on it, eyes fixed on the zombie’s lifeless body. The Wawa fell silent save for the drip drip dripping of coffee. The world blurred into its regular pacing. Nicky wrapped his arms around Ovi’s back. They leaned into each other, staring at the disembodied head.

"Thanks,” Nicky said.

“Yeah, any time,” Ovi panted. He rested his cheek on Nicky’s shoulder.

“Gurghh?” Tom said, shaking his head. He sat up a little straighter, looking around with bleary eyes. “Hey, is the zombie gone?”

“Weak,” Ovi chirped. “You got knocked out in first minute.”

“Where’d you learn to fight?” Nicky added. He pulled away from Ovi and crossed to Tom, offering a hand to help him to his feet.

“Shut up,” Tom said. He cracked his neck and stretched. Then, his eyes fell on the zombie’s head. He paled. “I think I’m gonna be sick. Someone pick up Andre’s sub.” He made for the door.

“You gonna go puke in the parking lot?” Nicky asked.

“Yup,” said Tom. He staggered outside, where he immediately doubled over and hurled.

Ovi and Nicky surveyed the wreckage. The cashier was still shaking behind the counter, and the food workers had long disappeared. They had made a complete mess of the store. Multiple shelves – and there weren’t that much to begin with – lay toppled on each other, their plastic-wrapped contents spilled all over the floor. The zombies body was already starting to smell of decay as it lay motionless beneath a basket of discount chocolate.

“This worse than Tom’s bachelor party when he thought he was gonna marry Kuzy in Vegas,” Ovi said.

"Or Vee’s bachelor party when he thought he was gonna marry Madison,” said Nicky.

Ovi grinned. “Or _my_ bachelor party when I thought I was gonna marry _you_ in Vegas.”

“Um,” squeaked the cashier.  

Their eyes snapped up to him. His face was as gray as the zombie, his knuckles white as they clutched the counter. Ovi leaned over the counter and handed him a one-hundred-dollar bill.

“Sorry about mess,” he said. “Get home safely, okay? Make sure other workers okay too.”

The cashier nodded spasmodically and pocketed the cash. “W-will you sign my phone case?” he asked.

“Nah,” Ovi said. “Can’t. It’s in my contract.”

"Oh," the cashier said.

“Any more zombies?” Nicky asked.

"No,” the cashier said. “J-just that one.” He swallowed. “My manager.”

“Shit,” Ovi said.

“Shit,” Nicky agreed.

“Sorry,” Ovi said.

“It’s okay,” the cashier said. He took a deep breath. “I’m gonna go home now.”

“Yeah,” Ovi said. The cashier skittered out from the counter and through the front door, disappearing around the corner. Ovi turned to Nicky. “You okay? Zombie bite you?”

Nicky gave himself a quick one-over. “Nah. I’m clean.”

Ovi pulled him close. “Good. Can’t lose you.”

“Not like this,” Nicky nodded. He breathed in, reluctant to release Ovi from the hug. Any excuse to hold him longer would do. “Where’s Andre?”

“Shitting himself in the car,” Ovi said. “He’s fine. Didn’t abandon my boy.”

“ _My_ boy,” Nicky said. “Swedish mafia.”

"Our boy. Washington Capitals.” Ovi gripped his hockey stick and pulled away. “We cuddle later. Let’s go. One hour ‘til Geno and Sid.”

Nicky followed him to the car. “The sooner we end this, the better.” He opened the passenger side door and climbed in. In the back, Tom and Andre clung to each other, both pale-faced and wide-eyed, shaking like an entire hockey team of leafs.

“Holy shit, Papa,” Andre piped, his voice like a little flute.

“Aghhh,” Tom echoed.

Nicky threw their bag of food at them. “Everything okay back there?”

“No,” Andre said.

“Good,” Ovi said. He slammed his door shut and started the engine before he had even fully sat down. “Now you see why we gotta find Sid.”

“I always thought a zombie apocalypse would be cool,” Tom said. “But it’s actually just super gross.”

“This is bad,” Andre said. “This is really, really bad.”

“Just figured that one out for yourself, huh, dumbass?” Ovi sniffed.

Andre just groaned and clutched Tom tighter. As the car pulled back onto the highway, Nicky cracked his knuckles. He didn’t really have a heart – not the way Ovi did, anyway – but he wasn’t without sympathy. There was no reason for a perfectly innocent Wawa to be overrun by a zombie attack in the middle of July. This shit had to stop.

Andre hadn’t looked this scared since he thought he had married Djoos in Vegas.

It was time to set things right. Time to make sure this Wawa incident never happened again. And the only way they could do that was by finding Crosby.

They had to go back to the source.   

                 

May 2018. The Stanley Cup Playoffs, round 2, game 7. Final period. Score: Capitals 2, Penguins 3. Thirteen minutes left. Nicky lined up for the face-off.             

There was an old myth, one that spread through hushed whispers (or jovial yells, in Washington) in the back corners of locker rooms, about the consequences of looking into Nicklas Backstrom’s eyes. _You can see your own death_ , they said. _The apocalypse resides in their depths._

The thing was, it wasn’t just idle gossip. It wasn’t just tongue-in-cheek commentary on Nicky’s infamous death stare. It wasn’t the side-effect joking of dead shark eyes.

It was a warning.

But Crosby was dumb as shit.

Now, Nicky _knew_ he should’ve known better. Beags had mentioned that the Canadian mafia put out official warnings every time a new player joined the league. But, Crosby liked to think he was above rules, or maybe he just honestly didn’t think these sorts of things applied to him. All the worse for him. Icarus didn’t think his wings would melt, either.

“So he just looked into your eyes and went insane?” Andre asked. Ovi pulled off the highway, per his GPS’s orders.

“Wouldn’t you, if you saw how you were gonna die?” Tom asked.

“And when,” Nicky added.

“Jesus,” Tom said.

“And _that’s_ why he started eating people?” Andre prodded.

“Yup,” Nicky said. “The American government thinks he developed the zombie mutation from a combination human flesh and weird latent savage genes that probably helped him play hockey so well.”

“Oh my god,” Andre said. He paused. “Hey, how am I gonna die?”

Nicky rolled his eyes up to the ceiling and prayed for patience. “No.”

Ovi swerved off the road, nearly running into a stop sign. He righted their course with a flick of the wrist and a whole slurry of colorful multilingual curse words. In the rearview mirror, Nicky could see a flailing gray blur disappear around a corner. In the backseat, Tom and Andre began to flip their entire shit.

“We’re getting close,” Ovi growled. “Fucking zombies, try to ruin my fucking car.”

Nicky flicked his thumb over Ovi’s shoulder absentmindedly. “Just focus.” He turned his attention back to the screaming children in the backseat. “Anyway, yeah, Sid looked into my eyes, saw his death, went crazy, became a zombie, and went into hiding.”

“Government faked his death to make people feel better,” Ovi grumbled, still pissed about his scratched paint job. “Actually with Geno. Government says they can make cure from Sid’s weird zombie blood. Easy peasy.”

“Will he come quietly?” Tom asked through panicked hyperventilation. He clutched fistfuls of Andre’s t-shirt like it was the only thing keeping him from an early death.

“Probably not,” Nicky said.

“I have man on the ground watching Geno’s base,” Ovi said. “He gonna call in backup if things get ugly.”

“Why not just tell the government where Sid is hiding, instead of you going there?” Andre asked. He buried his face in Tom’s shoulder as Ovi swerved to avoid yet another zombie.

Nicky shrugged. “They’ll let me off the hook if I get him.”

Tom and Andre, both white as a sheet, exchanged a look. “Wow, the American government is corrupt,” Tom said.

“It’s a good thing you’re good at hockey,” Nicky said.

“Ten minutes ‘til Crosbitch,” Ovi called.

Nicky nodded. If he had a gun, he would’ve cocked it. Instead, he just tucked a strand of hair behind his ear and stretched his arms forward. There were a million better places to be during the apocalypse than where Sid and Geno were hiding, but Nicky was Swedish. He could make do anywhere. If they thought lying low in the last place you’d expect would stop Nicklas Backstrom, they clearly hadn’t read up on the NHL lockout of 2012. It was time to end this.

It was time to finish that faceoff.    

              

Philadelphia didn’t wear the apocalypse well. Granted, Philadelphia didn’t wear _anything_ well. It was a city of poor coping skills and unchecked rage. That was probably why it had the highest population density of zombies in America. Any time someone cut someone else off in traffic, it was grounds for a physical assault on their person.

Also, they had the Flyers. Philadelphia was the city God abandoned.

Ovi pulled the car into an empty parking lot. On the building in front of them, the large face of a portly, jolly scoundrel of a man smiled down at them. Nicky, because he was flushed with cash re: professional hockey player, recognized him as the man from the hundred-dollar-bill.

“Why the hell are we at an electric factory?” Tom asked. “Don’t people, you know, work here?”

“ _The_ Electric Factory,” Ovi said. “My sources say it a concert hall.”

Tom’s lip curled into a sneer. “Philly sucks.”

“Yeah,” said Ovi.

“Yeah,” said Andre.

“Yeah,” said Nicky.

Ovi swung open the car door. “My man on ground say he meet us in…” He glanced at his phone clock. “Now.”

“Whip sayed you stop at Wawa?” Kuzy said as he jumped down from the tall chain link fence surrounding the building. “Why not you bring me sub?”

The non-Russians did their best impressions of large mouth bass. Kuzy laughed.

“ _Kuzy’s_ your inside man?” gaped Andre. “Augh, I told him so much.”

“Russian mafia ride or die,” Kuzy said, bumping Ovi’s fist.

Nicky gave Kuzy a quick, paternal hug. “You’re certain Sid and Geno are in there?”

Kuzy gestured to a military-grade black scope strapped to his back. “One hundred percent. They just on main stage with sleeping bags. No problem finding.”

“Any defenses?” Nicky asked.

“No, they both forwards,” Kuzy said with a shit-eating grin. “Tripwire in front door make beartraps fall from ceiling. Is clever.”

"What,” Tom said.

“Beartrap beartrap,” Ovi explained.

“Papa, what’s a ‘ _beartrap_?’” Andre asked Nicky in Swedish. Nicky translated, and understanding dawned on his face. He grinned, mouth hanging open, and giggled. “Beartrap beartrap.”

“So, just avoid the beartrap beartrap and we’re good?” Nicky asked.

Kuzy shrugged. “Far as I know. I watch from out here. Keep guard. Make sure Crosby and Malkin don’t run out back door.”

Nicky nodded at Ovi. “Ready?”

Ovi, who had been inspecting the damage on his car, looked up and nodded. “Fuck yeah. Come on boys, let’s go be tools of American government.”

“Fuck yeah!” Tom and Andre said.

The four of them bid goodbye to Kuzy, who trotted back to the chain link fence and did a birdlike leap to the top, disappearing quickly behind a dumpster. Nicky and Ovi took point, mostly because this was Nicky’s quest. (Ovi had just invited himself along, as was his prerogative.) They scanned the ground for traps. Clean as a whistle. Nicky nodded to the front door. Ovi kicked it open. It clanged against the wall, sending echoes howling throughout the big empty venue.

“Beartrap beartrap,” Ovi whispered. He nodded to the concrete floor. A strand of fishline, nearly invisible save for a tiny reflection of the setting sun, was strung inches from the ground just within the door. Ovi crouched down slowly, silently, and traced his fingers along its length. As he moved, light shined on a wire just inches from where his head had been. Nicky caught his breath and pointed at it. Ovi cursed.

“These birds are clever,” Andre mused.

“Can you disarm it?” Nicky breathed.

“What do I look like, Russian spy?” Ovi said. “I’m a professional hockey player.”

“Oh, I can do it,” Tom said.

“If this is a weird sex thing, I’m disowning you,” Nicky said.

“It’s not a weird sex thing, Jesus,” Tom said, offended, as he nudged Ovi out of the way and crouched before the wire. “I watch a lot of TV. Get off my back, Papa.”

“Touchy,” Nicky sniffed. Tom shot him a murderous look. Nicky didn’t meet his eyes, preventing it from being a _legitimately_ murderous look.

Tom grumbled under his breath as he followed the wire to the edge of the doorframe. Carefully, he stepped over it and into the venue. His big meaty hands went to work unhooking the wire from the wall. He moved carefully and slowly. The other three stared at him in amazement. It was like watching a dog stand on its back legs and order a hot dog.

“Almost got it,” Tom muttered. He stuck his tongue out in concentration. “Just gotta… Oh, shit.”

He only had time to cover his head as a little rainstorm of beartraps rained down on him from above. He cursed, and Nicky, Ovi, and Andre laughed, which just made him curse more. One of the beartraps latched onto his arm. He howled. When all the beartraps had fallen, Ovi helped him to his feet, inspecting the wreckage.

“Ow,” Ovi commented.

“Yeah, _ow_!” Tom screeched, poking at the jagged metal teeth imbedded in his arm. “Get it off!”

“Kuzy knowing how to disarm a beartrap,” Andre said.

"Of course he does,” Tom said. He clutched his arm and staggered back out of the venue. “Aw man, this is turning into _Tom Wilson and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day_.” He crossed the parking lot, and they stopped watching him, turning their attention instead to the very hostile and very tall Russian man who had appeared in front of them.

“Sasha,” Geno greeted.

“Zhenya,” Ovi responded.

Geno was, as Joe B and Locker might put it, a very tall boy. Officially, he was 6’4”, but everyone knew that was bullshit, and he was really more like 6-foot-fucking-enormous. This was only relevant because Ovi and Nicky were both, again, as Joe B and Locker might put it, very tall boys, and here, glowering with fierce protectiveness in the darkness of a shitty Philly concert hall, Geno _loomed_ like a grizzly bear. Maybe the real beartrap was the friends they had made along the way.

"Hi Geno,” Nicky said. He flexed his jaw. “Where’s Sid.”

Geno crossed his arms. “No.”

“Please?” Ovi asked

Geno looked at him. “No,” he repeated, emphatically.

“We’re not gonna hurt him,” Nicky said. “Alex, tell Geno we’re not gonna hurt Sid.”

Ovi translated. Geno scowled. “ _Fuck_ no.”

“I’m trying to help him, you idiot,” Nicky said.

“You made him –” Geno gestured with his hands. “Zombie.”

“He made himself -” Nicky mimicked the gesture. “Zombie.”

Ovi shoved past Geno. “This is stupid.” He cupped his hands over his mouth. “Hey! Sid! Where the hell are you?”

“Fuck you, Ovi,” Sid called back from the stage.

He didn’t look too bad, for a zombie. That was the weird part. He didn’t look like a zombie. Now, he didn’t look too hot – he was pale, and he looked like he had a bad cold – but he certainly didn’t look dead. He caught Nicky staring. They both averted their eyes.

Andre tugged on Nicky’s sleeve. “I thought he was a zombie.”

“He _was_ ,” Nicky murmured.

“What, you thought I was gonna be a zombie?” Sid asked. He hopped off the stage and began making his way toward them. “Sorry to disappoint.”

“What?” Ovi said. “You still look like a zombie to me?”

“Fuck you,” Sid said.

“It wear off,” Geno explained. “After two months. Now he just Sid again.”

Sid joined up with their little group. Up close, it was plain to see he was not a zombie anymore. He looked the way any normal person should – like he had never, not once in his life, ever been a zombie.

“Can they still make a cure from him?” Andre asked.

Nicky shrugged. “If not, it’s good that it wears off. Sid, you need to come with us.”

“Why?” Sid asked, narrowing his eyes.

“Because there’s a fucking zombie epidemic,” Ovi said. “American government has to make cure from your blood.”

“I’m not going with you,” Sid said. He pointed accusingly at Nicky. “He turned me into a zombie!”

They all looked at each other. Nicky cocked his head.

Sid shifted. “I got better.”

“Look, this is ‘end of the world’ bullshit, okay?” Ovi said. “No arguing. Come be guinea pig.”

“No!”

“Don’t be a baby, Crosby,” Nicky said.

“Fuck you!”

“You’re acting worse than my son.”

“Papa!”

“Hush, Andre, daddy’s working.”

Ovi scuffed his foot along the floor. “Oh my goooooooood. Just come save the world and stop being a tool for _once_.”

Sid skittered backwards a few steps, as if scared they might bring him in by show of force. “You can’t make me!” He cleared his throat. “Go, I mean.”

“American government very nice,” Ovi persuaded. “Probably not turn you into supermutant.”

“They just need a little blood,” Nicky said.

Ovi looked up suddenly, a horrible light in his eyes. He clapped Nicky on the shoulder. “Nicky, I don’t tell you this enough: you’re so genius.”

Nicky scoffed, but looked pleased. “You tell me that every day.”

“Washington huddle,” Ovi called. He threw his arms around Nicky and Andre, pulling them in close. They shuffled a few feet away from Sid and Geno as a unit. “We just need Sid’s blood for feds.”

“Lemme just get my needle,” Nicky hissed. “How the hell are we gonna get a pint of blood?”

“Just cut off his arm,” Ovi suggested. “Probably a pint of blood in an arm, right? How much is a pint?”

“Jesus Christ, you’re not cutting off my arm,” Sid said, his head popping up behind Andre. Andre elbowed him in the stomach. He muttered a curse and shoved him right back. Nicky pulled Andre away from the scrum before it could devolve any further.

Nicky rubbed his temples. “Okay, so, Sid won’t come, he won’t give us his blood -”

“Selfish,” Ovi spat.

Andre chewed on his finger. “It’s like a tie. We could go into overtime.”

Ovi grinned, looking back and forth between Sid and Nicky. He wrapped his arm around Andre’s neck and pulled him in close for a noogie. “Burky, you inherited some of Nicky’s smart. I have stick in car. Sid and Zhenya, you have sticks in your shitty hideout?”

“Yeah,” Geno said, because everyone knew Sidney Crosby couldn’t finish without a hockey stick. He narrowed his eyes. “We make shootout?”

“No way,” Andre said. “We’d need goalies, and Ovi can’t play defense.”

“I kick your ass for that later,” Ovi said. “Sid, you never get called for anything. Good thing that won’t be problem here.”

Sid crossed his arms. “What the hell are you trying to say?”

Nicky caught Ovi’s eye. He understood. His face split into a grin, sending Sid and Geno and Andre staggering backwards and clutching at their hearts. “Slashing is defined in the NHL rulebook as ‘the act of a player swinging his stick at an opponent, whether contact is made, or not.’”

“You’re going to beat each other with hockey sticks until someone concedes,” Ovi clarified.

Sid considered this. “You’re saying I get to just hit Backy with a stick until he falls down?”

“Please,” Nicky snorted. “You couldn’t even win that faceoff in May.”

Sid flicked his tongue in his cheek. “Geno, go get my stick.” He dipped his head at Nicky. “Ready to get your ass kicked, Ikea?”

Nicky cracked his knuckles. “Big talk for a zombie.”

Ovi tossed Andre his car keys so he could retrieve the hockey stick from the trunk. Geno jogged back to the stage to dig through the piles of equipment they had tossed around. Ovi rubbed Nicky’s shoulders, probably just as an excuse to touch Nicky.

“Time to end this once and for all,” Nicky said.

“No referees,” Ovi reminded him. “No referees in the streets.”

 

Ovi pulled into a visitor’s parking space in Shirlington, Arlington, Virginia and turned his key in the ignition. Nicky unclicked his seatbelt and stretched, his hands brushing the smooth interior above him. In the back, Tom and Andre nodded awake. They untangled themselves from each other, blinking around blearily at the dark parking lot of their apartment-bunker.

“We’re here,” Ovi announced. He thumbed at the side of Nicky’s face. “How your black eye?”

Nicky rested his head against the seat. “You should see the other guy.”

“Think they’d put him on week to week during regular season,” Tom commented. He rubbed at the medical pad on his arm. “Little rat deserved it.”

Ovi crawled out of the car and was up throwing open the other doors before anyone else had moved. “Since we all changed as people now, captain’s authority says Nicky and I sleeping in your apartment-bunker tonight.”

Tom groaned. “But we only have one mattress.”

“Guess you’re sleeping on the floor,” Nicky said.

They shuffled down the path toward the apartment-bunker. After hopping the fence and sliding through the back door, the four of them collapsed on the mattress, pressing into each other. Tom clicked on the television to give them a little light.

Nicky rubbed his arms. They were a truly artistic mottle of red and blue bruises. Turns out, fighting a slashing contest in nothing but a t-shirt, shorts, high socks, and a backwards baseball hat, is a pretty terrible idea, and that’s why people play hockey with pads.

They were all silent for a while. Tom and Andre stared at their phones. Ovi stared at Nicky. Nicky stared at the wall. Finally, Andre spoke.

“Hey, can I tell the Swedish mafia about today?”

“Sure,” Nicky said. Andre nodded and typed something into his phone. Nicky felt the notification vibrate in his pocket.

Tom squinted. “Did you just… text the entire Swedish mafia?”

“Yeah,” Andre said, showing him the phone screen. “It’s what we call our group chat. It’s got all the Swedish players in the NHL. Isn’t that what the Canadian mafia is?”

Tom coughed uncomfortably.

“Or the Russian mafia?” Andre insisted.

Ovi rubbed his neck. “You guys have a working bathroom? Nicky bleeding on mattress.”

Tom pointed absentmindedly to a door down the hall. “That one has a sink. The one upstairs is bigger and has a shower.”

Ovi pulled Nicky to his feet. “We can find it. Come on, Nicky.”

As they staggered down the hall toward the stairs, Tom called out after them, “No showers, the crab lives there.”

“I don’t even know how to respond to that,” Nicky said.

“His name is Snapshot,” Andre answered, making crab motions with his hand.

“You’re killing your father,” Nicky said.

The upstairs floor of the apartment-bunker was entirely bare. It looked as if Tom and Andre hadn’t even set foot up there yet. Nicky paused at the top of the stairs, leaning into Ovi’s touch.

“What time is it?” he asked.

“Late,” Ovi said. “Stopped by the Pentagon while you were passed out in the car.”

“So it’s over, then?” Nicky closed his eyes, practically collapsing onto Ovi. Ovi wrapped his arms around him, patting his back.

“Yeah,” Ovi murmured. “It’s over.”

Nicky released a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding. “Thanks for helping me save the world.”

“Thanks for saving the world,” Ovi replied. They stood there, Nicky with his cheek on Ovi’s shoulder, Ovi with his hands stroking Nicky’s hair, and they didn’t say anything. Road trips and apocalypses leave a stale ache in the body. It had been one hell of a day. It had been one hell of an off-season. But it was all okay now. Everything was going to be fine.

Nicky pressed a kiss to Ovi’s cheek, then pulled himself out of the embrace. “There’s blood on your shirt now.”

Ovi glanced down. “That’s okay, Nicky.”

Nicky smiled, not one of his murder smiles, but one of his bright, soft, happy ones. Ovi smiled back. They started toward the open bathroom door at the end of the hall, fingers interwoven.

“So, how do I die, Nicky?” Ovi asked.

Nicky just laughed. “Absolutely not.”

**Author's Note:**

> You might have noticed a loving reference to "the arrival of 290287 backstrom" by screamlet, i.e., the greatest piece of literature ever written. we're all big fans.
> 
> re: the number of references in here: if you cant make your own jokes, store bought is fine.
> 
> every nationality in the NHL has its own mafia. the australian mafia is just nathan walker's private facebook page.


End file.
